


the braveheart and the bride return hand in hand

by anthropologicalhands



Category: Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge | Braveheart Takes the Bride (1995)
Genre: Banter, F/M, First Time, Fluff, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27680813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropologicalhands/pseuds/anthropologicalhands
Summary: Marrying Raj before they return to London is a simple matter and feels perfectly natural.Then they tell their friends, and Simran remembers that nothing about their story can be called such.
Relationships: Raj Malhotra/Simran Singh
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	the braveheart and the bride return hand in hand

**Author's Note:**

> I love this movie so much. Raj and Simran are a great pair, and I wish there was more fic! But there is not, so here this one is.

Marrying Raj before they return to London is a simple matter and feels perfectly natural.

Then they tell their friends, and Simran remembers that nothing about their story can be called such.

Raj tells their tale in his usual bombastic style. He skims over their fears cavalier, turns it to a comedy wherein he is the knight in shining armor surrounded by a buffoonish bridegroom and aided by her own cleverness. He omits the episodes with the alcohol and her panicked morning after, his fast for Karwa Chauth, and the severity of his beating at Khuljit’s hands.

Everyone reacts more or less as Simran expects react incredulously—Rocky’s glasses nearly slide right off his nose, and Robbie can only shake his head in disbelief. Her friends titter and gasp in all of the right places, and keep looking between Raj and Simran, trying to find points of connection that they must have missed before.

“Simran, is this true?” they ask her, agog.

“All true,” she affirms, and they guffaw, oblivious to the weight behind it. If told the whole of it, their friends would not believe it—truthfully, she barely believes it herself sometimes.

Raj preens at her support, and in a moment of mischief, she adds. “He was terrible at hiding how in love with me he was—always singing about how he would carry me away. I’m amazed he didn’t get caught sooner!”

“But all of the groom’s friends are supposed to be in love with the bride,” Raj protests, to general laughter.

“Was your fiancé _that_ much of an idiot?” Sheema asks Simran, wiping tears of mirth out of her eyes.

“Yes,” says Raj, and when Simran elbows him it’s more out of force of habit than disagreement.

“Simran, you have cheek,” says Sheema with great admiration. “How dramatic! Never thought you would be a runaway bride! But the next time you go visit your family, you’re taking me along—you still owe me a trip.”

Simran feels her stomach swoop low, picturing her father’s house at the end of the long dirt road, lovely and imposing and more of a fortress than she had ever seen before. For all of her father’s blessings, she can’t imagine that she’ll be allowed back just yet with Raj, and she doesn’t dare go alone.

“Oh, another time,” she says, careless, as if she is the type of sophisticated girl who fell in love without a second thought and broke a promise to her father without any care for the consequences, who would have eloped the second she found the right love. “It’s _so_ boring there, Sheema. You would die.”

Sheema accedes her fickle attentions with a flick of her wrist, waving the question away and moving on to other pressing concerns, including that _you’re a married woman now, Simran…what’s_ that _like_.

And while she’s not the modest girl her father assumed, she’s not nearly bold enough to answer directly, turning away, laughing as she feels her cheeks heat up and enduring her friends’ delighted heckling.

“Oh, Simran, come on now, don’t be bashful.”

~

It was less of a struggle for her than for Raj, actually. As soon as she saw him standing among the yellow flowers, hat and mandolin in hand, Simran started thinking of Raj as her intended husband, acknowledging that frission of energy that initially drew sparks out of her as also having the potential to build a hearth, set alight a fire that would burn as long as it took. He found her, and helped her find him through his music, and she saw it as a promise. Everything after, avoiding Khuljit’s ring, ensuring that her fast was for Raj—all of it was necessary to make that promise come true. And now, nervous as she is to be left alone on their wedding night before they fly back out to London, this next step feels very bit as natural as what came before it.

Raj, by contrast, nearly knocks over the bedside lamp when she steps out of the master bathroom, barely catching it by the base, losing the lampshade, and cringing at the clatter.

“Whoops,” he says, sheepishly, setting the lamp back right side up, and Simran averts her eyes until Raj has settled the lampshade back on, dimming the bulb’s harsh light. When she can look at him again, he’s looking out the window instead of at her, as if entirely enraptured by some glorious vision. “Wow! What a view, huh?”

“What do you mean, it’s completely dark,” objects Simran shortly, adjusting the thin robe a little more tightly around her waist, suddenly self-conscious about the chill in the room. “How can you see anything?”

“You’ll see, I’m just waiting for the moon to rise.” Raj glances back at her, one hand drawn up as if he is simply voicing a mere notion, but she knows exactly what he’s up to, when his eyes pop dramatically as if only noticing her presence, and that careless hand sweeps back through his hair as he grins at her, now boyish and cocky. “There she is. It seems the moon got tired of the sky and came inside instead.”

“She did,” says Simran, feeling silly for playing along, heat rising in her cheeks, but she likes how Raj’s own smile brightens in response, cheeks dimpling.

“Now I can see everything perfectly. Forget the silly lamp, I don’t need it.” He shoves at the lampshade, not even trying to go for the switch. “Although…”

“Then why don’t you turn it off?” asks Simran, moving toward him. She’d like to see what he looks like when he looks up at the moon, strumming his mandolin. His concentration when playing is so different from how he speaks, plucking words out of nothing. When Raj plays the mandolin, he’s deliberate, his notes carefully selected, building and building upon a favorite melody.

That concentration seems to be centered within him right now, with how he looks at her.

He sighs, the sound as grand and dramatic as if the north wind itself has possessed him. “It’s a great problem, senorita. The moon has come to visit me, but she’s still across the room. I can see her, but she can’t see me, especially not if I turn off this lamp.”

“She can see you if you come closer.”

“That is true, but how close? If I turn off this lamp, it will be dark in here. Then she won’t see me at all.”

“She won’t need to see you if you hold her.”

There’s that grin again, eyes sparkling with the same joy that helps Simran push pass her nervousness and move forward.

“Ah, very true! I want her to wrap her arms around me first. Come here, senorita. Then, the lamp.”

Raj spreads his arms open wide, a little more posed than in the mustard field, though his fingers twitch once, then twice, impatient for her to come here.

Simran wants to be annoyed that he is behaving so unseriously even on their wedding night, but her nervousness is gone again, her insides warm and glowing with contentment that this room and this boy is exactly where she should be.

So into his arms Simran goes, pressing her nose into the crook of his neck and nudging the edge of his shirt aside, and Raj exhales shakily against her shoulder, as his arms swoop around her waist and back to clutch her tightly against him. His fingers skim and catch on the satiny sheen of her robe, but it’s not exactly a lover’s caress—it’s all-encompassing, like he isn’t convinced she won’t vanish like smoke, spirited away.

“Raj, are you worried?”

“Worried?” asks Raj, his tone changed, and when she eases back in his arms to see him better, she sees his concern. “About what? You’re here. You’re my bride. We are exactly as we should be.”

Simran smiles. “I thought you would be more serious tonight.”

“I didn’t want to scare you,” he murmurs. “It’s a scary thing we just did.”

“Raj, are you scared?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You’re my bride. I know how happy you make me, and I want to make you that happy.”

“I’m happy,” Simran assures him, smiling into the linen of his shirt. “I promise. I love you.”

His arms tighten around her and he rests his chin on the top of her head. “I love you too.”

“Raj?”

“Hm?”

“The lamp…?”

“Ah, right!”

The lamp goes off, and the night returns to the lovers, and nothing is more natural.

~

She’s not going to give them details—those are private, but she’s teased Raj enough tonight.

“It was…very nice,” Simran says at last, embarrassed but smiling softly. “Raj was a true gentleman.”

Their friends tease and coo but don’t pry further. Simran glances at Raj, half-expecting a rejoinder that she was no lady, but Raj simply lifts up his cup in acknowledgement of the compliment, eyes cast down. Under the table, his hand seeks her, lacing their fingers together.

Nothing could be more natural.


End file.
